


and love will not break your heart

by besidemethewholedamntime



Series: it's only goodbye for a little while [1]
Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: Angst with a Hopeful Ending, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/M, Gen, Spoilers for 5x22, canon compliant with 5x22, the character death that happened in canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-19
Updated: 2018-05-19
Packaged: 2019-05-09 02:39:09
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,527
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14707541
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/besidemethewholedamntime/pseuds/besidemethewholedamntime
Summary: *Spoilers for 5x22*"The first law of thermodynamics: the energy of an isolated system is constant thus energy is neither created or destroyed. His energy is still here, scattered around all parts of this unforgiving universe. His energy is everywhere but Fitz is nowhere."Jemma processes everything and is more determined than ever to bring him home.





	and love will not break your heart

**Author's Note:**

> I don't even really know what to say, you guys. I'm really sorry but I don't. I was up at 6am to find out what happened and then I was working non-stop for nine hours and I'm ill so I might not be thinking the clearest but I don't know. I was upset. And then angry. And then I understood, but I'm still upset. And now I guess I'm disappointed. Because that might have been our series finale, and it wasn't how I wanted to say goodbye. But it's just my opinion. Feel free to disagree!
> 
> I think I might turn this into a series (my first ever eeep...). There's so many things I want to write and I have a year I suppose. And a long summer ahead. What do you think?
> 
> There's a few swear words in here... I'm sorry. I just believed that strong emotions come with death and I couldn't think of any non-sweary alternatives. I'm sorry!
> 
> The title is from 'After the Storm' by Mumford and Sons. (Fitting, don't you think). And the quote is from 'all that remains' by Sue Black (who is an utter hero of mine - AND she's the founder of my school at university and she's an awesome woman and if you don't know her then google 'Professor Dame Sue Black' and that should just wow).
> 
> I don't know if I can say I hope you enjoy this? But I hope you enjoy the writing at least. 
> 
> I'll stop rambling now, and let you get on with this fic. 
> 
> Thanks!

_"whatever we believe, life and death are unquestionably inextricably bound parts of the same continuum”.  
_

 

She knows as soon as Mack appears in the doorway.

They wouldn’t send anybody else to tell her. Mack is the logical choice. He is soft, and gentle, and would know just the right things to say. Maybe he did say all the right things, but she wasn’t listening. It’s as if she’s underwater, looking up at him from the murky depths. He’s blurry, out of focus. His mouth moves, tears spill over from his eyes and he offers her a hug which she accepts without really accepting it.

And then he leaves.

And then she flees.

Except it’s not really fleeing. She walks with calm, precise measurements, absolutely willing her bottom lip to not tremble and her eyes not to fill up completely until she makes it to her room. _Keep it in, Jemma. Just keep it in. Just keep going._

She gets to her room and locks the door, but she knows nobody is going to come looking for her just yet. It’s when she spies the photo of them, so young and so baby-faced that she lets go and lets herself sob for what she’s lost.

It’s more than a husband. It’s more than a partner. He’s been with her since she was sixteen years old, and he knows her better than she even knows herself. She’s never been without him like _this_ before. Even when she was with Hydra, even when she was on Maveth, even when there was the Framework and the future she was always sure that Fitz was still alive, still there. It’s never been this absolute before.

She’s lost her best-friend, and she doesn’t even know what to do.

_What if this isn’t his story, Jemma? What if this isn’t about how he dies?_

_What if this is about how you do?_

The first law of thermodynamics: _The energy of an isolated system is constant, thus energy can neither be crated nor destroyed._

It only brings her a modicum of comfort. Only a slither. His energy is still here, scattered around all parts of this unforgiving universe. His energy is everywhere but Fitz is nowhere and her throat is raw from screams and her heart feels like it actually might break. Before she wouldn’t have said people could die from broken hearts, but now she’s not so sure.

_Fuck_ the world and _fuck_ the universe and _fuck_ the cosmos because for one brief, shining moment she had _everything._ And now she has _nothing._ It’s all _gone._ The world was ending but even still, when all hope seemed loss she was so sure they could save it this time around and she worries it might all have been for naught. Because Yoyo still has no arms and Daisy still has a scar on her neck and they might have fixed the world but they’re all still broken.

So, she lets herself cry for this. Lets herself be broken. _It’s alright, Jemma. Have this moment. Cry yourself to sleep and when you wake the world will seem a little bit better._

When she wakes the world is worse, because now she knows it isn’t a dream.

Jemma starts reflecting on all of their time, on how she let him down. Because she did, didn’t she? She let him down. There was s _omething_ she could have done, _something_ that could have meant he was here with her now instead of her being alone, her cheeks sticky from salty tears and her eyes raw and swollen. She was too busy thinking of her own mortality, that she forgot to be worried about his.

And in all this thinking about timelines and monoliths she thinks _oh my God, there’s another of him._

There’s one out there in space, travelling through time and if he wakes in that future then they won’t be there anymore. He’ll be alone in the future, and she’ll be alone here. _No._ She won’t do that. She won’t fail him again. She will find him, and she will bring him home because he’s _Fitz_ and she loves him and she will get another chance that nobody else gets.

Except there is no relief, not really. Because how does she even begin to explain to him all that’s happened? How does she explain that she’s married to him but he isn’t quite married to her, that they aren’t even engaged? How does she explain Deke, about the daughter they might now never have? How does she explain that his relationship with Daisy will never be the same? Their relationship will be strained and he won’t even know why, will probably doubt he’s capable of such a thing.

And even when she finds him, even when they are Fitzsimmons once more, things will still not be fixed. Because he still _died._ That Fitz, the one that married her and told her that she was perfect and that he was the luckiest man on any planet, that Fitz is still… _dead._ A Fitz died and she will never be able to forgive herself for that for as long as she lives, even though he might be right by her side.

Perhaps it’s selfish, her thinking like this. Perhaps it isn’t fair. Because he will get an almost clean slate. A fresh start. This time she will know the signs and what to look for and she won’t let him down. She’ll take every wrong and turn it into a right.

This time she will save him.

_That’s the spirit, Jemma._

And so, she makes plans.

Jemma Simmons is now a woman with a mission, a woman with a broken heart but a plan to heal it and she cannot be stopped.

But first things first: she visits her husband.

He’s laid out on a table. A blanket covers everything except his face. Jemma’s awash instantly, because although she’s known, it’s one thing to be confronted with the reality up close.

However, she takes a small solace in that he finally, finally, looks at peace.

She takes his hand. It’s cold. Fitz’s hands were never cold. That was her hands. His were always warm and a little bit rough in places but still soft. Still safe to her. They don’t feel like his hands anymore.

This isn’t Fitz anymore.

Mack had given her his ring earlier, and she plays with it in her palm, making it warm again before slipping it onto his ring finger.

“You should keep this,” she murmurs, trying to hard not to break down.

They were married. This Fitz and This Jemma were married, and that doesn’t stop meaning something now.

She lets go of his hand and presses a kiss to his lips. They’re so cold, so unlike him that it makes it easier.

“Goodbye Fitz.”

And she doesn’t look back, cannot look back, because if she did she might not be strong enough to walk away.

She begins to focus on the future, on finding him again.

He will need things. He’s in space with Enoch but he will need things to help him when (not if) they find him.

She moves around the room like a robot, methodically thinking about what he will need and laying it out to pack in a suitcase. The laws of thermodynamics are never far from her head. _The energy of an isolated system is constant. He is still here._

There’s the second law, too: _the entropy of an isolated system will always increase over time._

Disorder is always becoming more and more apparent. Things keep getting messier and messier and science, which used to be so clear cut and black and white is now becoming more and more grey and she doesn’t trust it as much as she used to. Except it’s always been there, right from the very beginning it was foretold.

And so she packs a suitcase, keeping some measure of order in her system where entropy is always increasing.

_Just keep putting one foot in front of the other, Jemma. That’s it. Keep going._

Bitterly, she thinks why him. Why did it have to be her that got someone stolen, why did she have to lose? Jemma allows herself this moment of grief, this admittance to herself that she seems to have suffered unfairly. But then she locks it away, dries her eyes, and gets ready for the next fight.

But it’s so hard.

Now she has a mission, a reason to keep on going because maybe she wouldn’t have had the strength otherwise. But it’s so much energy, so much fight, and she’s tired and in some small recess of her mind, the dark part she never enters, she wonders would it be so bad to just give up.

_You know the answer._

She knows she never would give up, couldn’t. For as long as there is a chance he is out there then she will fight forever, in the same ways they have fought for each other all times over the years.

She will find Leopold James Fitz, and she will bring him home.

The cosmos be dammed once more.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you so much for reading! Please feel free to leave kudos/comment. Please feel free not to. Either way, I hope you have a lovely day!
> 
> (And also, to all members of the AoS fandom. We've got this and we've got each other. We're going to be absolutely fine.)


End file.
